EVALUATING IMPACT ON AMPACITY ACCORDING TO IEC-60287 REGARDING THERMALLY UNFAVOURABLE PLACEMENT OF POWER CABLES

Sammanfattning: According to International Electrotechnical Commission’s standard document IEC-60287 the current carrying capabilities of power cables can be mathematically modelled. Current rating of power cables can hence be done without having to perform expensive and timely experiments. This allows different techniques in power cable utilizing and placement to be compared to one another. In this master thesis two different techniques for placement of power cables are investigated using IEC-60287. A conventional technique where the electric power cable is placed in a cable trench is compared to the method where the power cable is placed in a protective plastic duct. Comparisons have been made in the areas: current carrying capacity, economy and technical simplifications. Based on the analysis in this report results show that the theoretical current carrying capacity (ampacity) of the power cable placed in a plastic duct is sufficient for usage under given circumstances and that the method allows greater flexibility regarding the interface between contractors. Conclusions from this master thesis should be used only based on circumstances very similar to the set-up described in this report. Current carrying capabilities of power cables diverges depending on cable model, surrounding media, protective plastics and/or metals and many more properties of the system. Each system demands an investigation of it’s own, but systems containing power cables buried in plastic ducts can with support from this report be closely described.